Forget bacon. Nevermind dumplings. What the emoji keyboard really lacks in 2016 is a tiny pictograph to communicate the moment in which you discover people who share your dubious cultural tastes. A cross between the praise hands and the covered-eyes monkey, it would express that special subset of exhilaration—Rapture! Joy! Humiliation.

I realized what use it would be to me about five weeks ago when it became very obvious for maybe the first time ever that not only one, but at least three people in the tri-state area still have fond memories and an active investment in MTV's The Challenge—and all of them work at ELLE.com. When we heard that MTV was hosting a reunion special in New York City, we knew what we need to do. We had to go―we'd be Johnny Bananas not to! (Sorry.)

For over a decade, probably, I have been a devoted fan of The Challenge. Before DVR and smart TVs, MTV used to air old episodes back-to-back for marathon viewers. If there was a greater indulgence than consuming all of them like that, I never knew it. And so on summer evenings and lazy afternoons and for a brutal two-week spell when I had my wisdom teeth out, I looked on while Chris "CT" Tamburello vanquished his foes (all of them) and OG Mark Long flaunted muscles that defied the laws of gravity.

I loved it.

I studied too hard and read a lot of books, so for me, the Bunim-Murray brand of hedonism was addictive. "It's all very Lord of the Flies," I told my mom. She wanted to understand why her otherwise sensible kid liked to watch twentysomethings have threesomes in hot tubs and eat bugs to win cash prizes. A statement I really once made: "The show is pretty much an exercise in cultural studies." I know—I hate me, too.

But the truth is The Challenge did teach me some valuable lessons. A choice few:

Never drink as much as Tonya did.

Be glad you paid attention in school—the world needs people who are good at puzzles.

The universe is full of assholes like Wes. You cannot fix them.

To everything, there is a season. Know when your time is up, okay, Robyn?

And when it all seems like too much to bear and the producers are telling you to eat bull testicles, think of T.J. Lavin. He makes it all better.

But my coworkers understood. The men and women and lunatics on these shows were our icons! Our wayward heroes! Our very, very, very minor celebrities! We had to meet them. Within minutes of our gabfest, we had secured ourselves seats at the reunion show for The Challenge: Battle of the Bloodlines. Pulses racing, we decided that I would go and report on the experience. Would it be better than the time I sat in on The Rachael Ray Show? Yes, I was sure of it! Did The Challenge reunion episode beat Oprah? Perhaps! It all seemed possible.

What I witnessed on that fateful eve aired on Wednesday, following the season finale of the show on MTV. And let me say now: Even I, a dedicated watcher of The Bachelor and The Real Housewives of Orange County, have never been in the presence of so much televised heartbreak.

Admittedly, I've been a fair-weather viewer this season, which means I only recognized some of the contestants. But I knew a good bunch of them: Aneesa Ferreira was there. And, of course, Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio showed up. Erstwhile lovers Abram and Cara Maria were on hand to provide some of the essential drama—she cheated on him this season. And Cory Wharton made his presence known, raising his arms during every commercial break to flaunt his pit stains. One castmate regaled the audience with stories of public urination. For two hours, I watched the cast recount drunken hookups and deli meat fiascos. None of it seemed like an anthropological experiment or even good entertainment. It seemed, well, a little sad—like how an alcohol-soaked high school dance looks to grown-ups.

Just before Cara Maria got on her knees to apologize to Abram for her infidelities, I grabbed my coat and ducked out the back of the studio. It's not necessarily that it all had stopped being polite (had it ever been?), but it had definitely gotten too real.

Back in 2014, the A.V. Club published an analysis of The Challenge's considerable charms—how it established themes and made personas of its cast members, the way it traded on debauchery and alcohol, and rewarded competitive spirits. But the deep dive emphasized how the show has fallen short, too. It pointed out the many ways in which the show has become an hostile space for "women, the out-of-shape, the differently abled, and the uncoordinated."

No matter how nasty or violent competitors may be, they will always be invited back, if they make for good television. "The shame of it is that while The Challenge was becoming a great workplace drama," the site asserts, "it was also becoming a terrible workplace."